Scotland fail to impress despite victory against world’s worst team

A BLOOD-ORANGE sun was sinking behind the trees as the players walked out side by side.

But 3,455 miles away in Astana, it had already set on this European campaign.

Because in the same freezing city and on the same plastic pitch where we’d been taken apart just three days before, Russia had won with a cigar on.

And just two games from ten into this group, Scotland were needing snookers.

Yes, we can kid ourselves on all we like that there’s still everything to play for and that anything can happen and that there are no easy games at this level and blahdy blah.

Let’s get real, though – and admit that Scotland losing 3-0 to the Kazakhs then the Russians tonking them 4-0 has made the job ten times tougher than it was to start with.

Scotland were always going to have to finish above them to have a chance of qualifying. That meant matching them result for result, beating them at home and getting a draw over there.

Yet here we are, one weekend gone, with them three points and seven goals better off in real terms.

While the Scots were being booed to the rafters as a team of students and van drivers run them ragged.

Scotland had more than 600 Tartan Army troops in Kazakhstan. They had close to 3,000 for the San Marino game.

They’re wonderful, loyal people any nation would swap their crown jewels for.

But they’ve had enough. The abuse they threw at the blazers who run our game as this bedraggled, soul-less display dragged on and on told us that for sure.

Even when Johnny Russell finally gave Scotland the breathing space of a second goal they scarcely deserved, the applause had barely died down before they were back to bawling F*** The SFA.

An impotent cry, perhaps, seeing as Alan McRae and Rod Petrie and the rest of their crew are pretty much untouchable. From the heart, though, very much from the heart.

These are the men who gave us Berti and Burley, who couldn’t coax a wean out of a burning building

Bill Leckie for SunSport

They watch these guys progress through the ranks without having to prove their worth, see them cover each other’s backs wherever things go wrong, keep spending their hard-earned cash to follow Scotland around the world cattle-class while the McRaes and Petries live large on expenses.

And on a night like this, in a situation like this, it all just feels beyond a joke.

That’s why they didn’t scream at individual players, or call for the manager’s head even though few believe he’s the right man for the job, but instead went for the guys at the top.

And they’re right, too. These are the men who gave us Berti and Burley, who couldn’t coax a wean out of a burning building never mind convince Michael O’Neill we were a good career move for him and who then panicked and hired Big Eck.

These might not be the guys who pick the wrong team or who misplace the passes or sky the sitters, but they’re the ones who those fans turned again – and that very much tells the story of what the average Scottish fan thinks of where its national game is headed.

Can’t be trusted

Once upon a time, those same fans would have argued till they’d were tartan in the face that we’d bounce back from where we are this morning, they’d be in the stands with ten minutes of the final game to go and Scotland2-0 down, still believing they could score three.

Those day are past now. And in the past they will remain unless there’s a root and branch revolution inside Hampden, a dismantling of the old boys’ network and a new breed put in place, a new, professional management structure for an ultra-professional era.

I mean, even if there was a will to change the manager – which for me would be the right thing to do – how can they be trusted to pick the right replacement this time?

The answer is that they can’t. Most wouldn’t trust these guys with the remote control for the telly, never mind the recruitment process for a £200,000-a-year job.

Yet last night they swanned out of the posh seats, back inside for one last drop of vino, were whisked to the airport for the flight home, as serene and outwardly-unaffected by it all as they always are.

Think what you like of Eck, but he hurts when we’re toiling. Slaughter the players all day long, but they care.

The Blazers? I’m not sure winning or losing makes a blind bit of difference to some of them, so long as they stay on the gravy train.

That’s why the fans picked them as their scapegoat last night rather than the ones in the dugout or on the pitch. That’s why they sang Sack The Board, over and over again.

See, they might not think Eck’s up to the job, but at least he’s doing his best.

The players might have let themselves down through this double-header to forget, but at least they put a shift in.

I am not and never have been convinced that the same can be said of the men who forever keep their heads below the parapet when the shot and shell’s flying, the men who always survive, the men who right their own rules so their mates all get a shot at running the show.

They’re not the reason we lost in Kazakhstan and plodded so flat-footedly through this non-event of a win.

But they’re the reason even the fiercest of diehard is losing faith in Scotland.

As those fans trudged away at time up, the tannoy burst into life with Highway To Hell.

This one goes out to Alan and Rod in the VIP Suite…